Talk:The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 June 2019 and 24 July 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aramirez546.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Data conflicting with cited sources
Guys, something is going very wrong here. The data for the film's gross takings are cited to the 2002 version of Box Office Mojo, which I take it is a reliable source. We are therefore stating the gross takings as they were in that year, when the film obviously caused a box office sensation. This does not deny or belittle any later earnings, but they are not the point here - this is not a news site, reporting every small change day-to-day; nor a data site, reporting whole data streams for years on end. This is an encyclopedia, and our job is to report "the main points" reliably. Our reliability is a function of the sources we cite, and our compliance with those sources. We can't be seen to be citing 2002 sources (or 2020 sources) and then putting in what may (or may not) be 2021 figures compiled from nobody-knows-where. For what it's worth, I'd say that providing the 2002 data and citing it to a 2002 source makes very good sense here, as it says all that is needed - this film did extremely well at the box office at that time, basta. It is either Original Research, failure to cite sources, or abuse of sources (making them seem to say what they do not) to modify data in an article while the source says something different - that is really damaging to Wikipedia's reputation. I do hope these points are clear to everybody - they are central to the way Wikipedia works, and to how the non-editing public sees Wikipedia, so they matter. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:45, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Nothing is going wrong here at all, other than your desire to use data from 19 years ago. How can you say the 2002 version of Box Office Mojo is a reliable source but not believe the 2021 version of the site? As per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_film. It says "Insert the worldwide gross revenue accrued by the film in its theatrical run". It doesn't say the initial theatrical run. Why would people include out of date information in an online encyclopedia? I agree that the initial gross is relevant and noted in the body of the article that the figure you used was its initital gross and similarly in the box office section to make this clear but the infobox should have its gross, not a gross at a random point in time. The citation indicates at what point in time the data comes from. Check the majority of film infoboxes and they do not show at what point in time the gross was taken from other than from the citation so is bizarre to include it here.Sudiani (talk) 11:06, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Please don't ignore the evidence. I understand there is a tradition of giving the latest figure, but it is neither the only one that makes sense, nor even necessarily the best or most appropriate one. Further, there is a long-running confusion of figures, and seemingly an equally long-running tradition of abuse of sources.


 * 1) Other editors have found the two different gross values confusing long before I came across it: they see two where they expect one, and they edit accordingly, --- wrongly but not entirely unreasonably, and frankly entirely predictably. I suggest that whenever we have such a situation on Wikipedia, as we unquestionably have here, both readers and editors need clarity in the form of disambiguating glosses, like "as of 2021" or whatever. Without such a gloss, the data certainly are ambiguous, which is no good. If you want the 2021 figure there (briefly, until next year...) then say which figure you are using, and update the citation. I understand there is a tradition of running after the latest data in this way - I think it foolish - but if you have such a tradition, at least it must be handled in a way that non-specialist readers and indeed non-specialist editors can immediately appreciate; otherwise, you're editing only for yourself, which is no good.


 * 2) The fact is that the film became a sensation back in 2002, and its box office figure then is certainly of encyclopedic interest. That is also a permanent, stable datum, which the constantly-changing "latest" figure is not. It makes good sense to use that figure in the text, whatever you choose to do in the infobox. I do hope this is clear. I appreciate you guys have a "film" tradition but all the same you do need to communicate with the rest of the world in the article. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:47, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

British English?
Should this article be in British English? I noticed "instalment" had been reverted back to "installment" back in 2018. It should be "instalment", right? Ccrashh (talk) 01:37, 16 July 2023 (UTC)